How do I clean up keyword hierarchies in Lightroom?

Question

I've been using Lightroom for a few years. At one point I kept keywords in a hierarchy, so I'd have something like:Animals > Birds > EaglesThis worked well, I could include the option to export parent keywords and all was good. Then I got lazy and started tagging things all over the place. So whereas my "Eagles" tag is nicely under Animals and Birds, I might have a Falcons or Parrot keyword that stands on its own and doesn't have the parental structure.Rearranging the keyword hierarchy within Lightroom is *very* time-consuming... dragging and dropping isn't so quick when there are thousands of items in play.I know that Lightroom has the ability to export and import keywords, but I'm struggling with the best way to perhaps clean this up. Is there a good way to manipulate the keywords externally and then bring that back into Lightroom?

Answer 1

I understand how managing a large keyword hierarchy in Lightroom can become overwhelming. Here’s a more efficient way to clean up and reorganize your keywords externally:

1. Export Your Keywords:
2. In Lightroom, go to Metadata > Export Keywords.
3. Save the keyword list as a text file.
4. Edit the Keyword List Externally:
5. Open the exported keyword text file in a text editor (like Notepad or any other text editor you prefer).

Organize your keywords into the desired hierarchy. For example:Animals

Birds

Eagles

Falcons

Parrots

1. Make sure to use tabs to indicate the hierarchy levels.
2. Import the Edited Keyword List:
3. In Lightroom, go to Metadata > Import Keywords.
4. Select the edited keyword text file and import it back into Lightroom.

By editing the keyword list in a text editor, you can quickly and efficiently reorganize your keywords without the slow process of dragging and dropping within Lightroom.